Bethlehem's Adam Chisnall coming home to crack you up

Adam Chisnall has pursued his dream for three and a half years in New York City, and now he's coming back home for the first time to strut his comic stuff.

Chisnall, 27, a Bethlehem Township native, will perform at Bethlehem's Diamonz Nightclub on Saturday, May 4, as part of "Comedy's Best Kept Secret Tour."

New York City is considered the best place for standup, as there are a huge number of clubs close to each other. Chisnall does 8 to 12 shows a week and has played them all, including the New York Comedy Club, TriBeCa Lounge, Caroline's on Broadway and the Broadway Comedy Club.

"You get more practice. It's like going to the gym. The more you go, the better you get. You learn to use less words and take less time to get to a punchline. You get more confident and can stay more in character."

Chisnall says that onstage he is "more flamboyant, wild, loud and physical. It is an exaggeration of everyday life." His observational comedy includes a lot of communication with the audience as he talks about the Dominican neighborhood where he lives, relationships, and coming out as a gay man.

Doing so many gigs, including some beginning at 1 in the morning, ensures that some will be memorable. "Once I played on top of a roof for a car dealership with helicopters flying overhead." Of course, hearing was difficult. "Another time was for two families with children, and once someone choked me after a performance, when they thought I made an inappropriate advance to one of their relatives."

Talking about being gay does not limit him to specific clubs or audiences in the multicultural urban scene. "In New York City there are people from all over the world, and even if some don't speak English, everybody is going to laugh."

Chisnall has been preparing for a comedy career his whole life, even if he did not know it. His original interest was in theater. He was immersed in it at Bethlehem's Freedom High School. He was named Best Supporting Actor as Bernardo in "West Side Story" in the very first Freddy Awards in 2003, a program of the State Theatre in Easton that recognizes excellence in high school theater.

Even before that, he put on shows in the basement of his house. His Basement Productions presented "Little Shop of Horrors" and "Rocky Horror Picture Show," which were also performed for a veterans' hospital.

After studying musical theater at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Chisnall moved to Chicago and took comedy studies for a few months at Second City, the famed improvisational comedy group. "There was a standup requirement. I was nervous. I talked about losing my virginity, and it went over well. I was hooked."

Chisnall has taken a number of day jobs in the city, including working at Toys R Us, a discount ticket booth, as a preschool teacher, and has worn advertising posters in Times Square.

He hopes to see family and friends at the show, promising them a laugh and a good time.

Joining Chisnall on Saturday are two of his friends, Stephanie Holmes and Dan Frigolette.

Chisnall says Holmes has "been doing comedy forever – seven years!" That is a lot in comedy years, as she says while talking from the city. "I'm 27. Now it seems like a long time. It's exhausting, and the pay is not that much."

Holmes loves doing her high energy, fast-paced sets and has an easygoing rapport with her audiences. But it can be a difficult life. "If you work from 9 in the morning until 1 a.m., that's a long day. Sometimes you wonder what all this is for." Like Chisnall, Holmes has held a variety of day jobs that are "less than glamorous."

But also like Chisnall, she is hooked. "I might take a day off, but then I feel worse because I'm not doing comedy. I can't not do it — it's the only thing I'm good at." She was one of 10 finalists for "New York's Funniest" in the 2009 and 2011 New York Comedy Festivals.

Holmes does comic raps as well as jokes. "The raps started when I was a kid to made my friends laugh. I don't play an instrument, so it's easy to do." She can provide her own beats from her phone when it is plugged into a sound system. She made videos of many of them that are posted on YouTube.

Holmes has enough confidence now to hold her own with guy comics and still keep her attractiveness and femininity. But she says, "It's different for a woman. You can find yourself with four sweaty dudes in a van driving to someplace called 'Chuckleheads'. Women get tired of that."

Just living in the city is not easy if you are a single woman from Fort Wayne, Ind. "I left three weeks after graduating when I was 18. All these scary things were happening, but I was too dumb to know that it was dangerous. Adam now lives in the neighborhood I used to live in, and when I visit him now, I'm horrified!"

Chisnall describes his friend Dan Frigolette as "manly, very loud, and very lovable." He is not so much loud as enthusiastic and communicative, both onstage and in a phone call from the city.